Iran – Features

Britain ‘should approach Hamas’

(source: BBC NEWS)

The UK government has come under rising pressure from MPs to start making contact with Palestinian group Hamas.                                  

A Foreign Affairs Committee report also said it was "regrettable" UK-supplied military items were "almost certainly" used by Israel in the Gaza conflict. The cross-party group, which monitors foreign policy, called on the EU to make relations with Israel conditional on its peace-making efforts. Hamas was also criticised for its use of rockets on Israeli civilian targets.

‘Ineffective strategy’

But committee chairman Michael Gapes said the committee saw "few signs that the current policy of non-engagement with Hamas" was effective. He added that the government "should urgently consider engaging with moderate elements within Hamas" as it had with the political wing of Hezbollah in Lebanon earlier this year. The wide-ranging report condemns Israel for the continuing growth of settlements and for its blockades around the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip.

It was unacceptable, said Mr Gapes, to deny unrestricted access for humanitarian assistance. And the report also called for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to declare whether it considered war crimes had been committed during the December 2008 to January 2009 conflict in Gaza and southern Israel.

Hamas came into criticism for its rocket attacks, but MPs concluded that Israel’s military action in Gaza was "disproportionate".

Mr Gapes said: "Rocket fire from Gaza by Hamas and other Palestinian groups on civilian targets in Israel is unacceptable. "It generates the risk of a renewed escalation in violence, and constitutes a central obstacle in the way of Israeli willingness to move forward towards a two-state settlement."

The report welcomed the endorsement by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a two-state solution to the conflict.The committee added that the split between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was a central obstacle to creating a united and democratic Palestinian state, and called for elections that could be accepted by all parties.

Former prime minister Tony Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, was commended for "making an important contribution to Palestinian economic and institutional development". But movement, access and administrative restrictions on the West Bank continued to represent a "major obstacle to further Palestinian economic development," it added.

Hamas takes its name from the Arabic initials for the Islamic Resistance Movement. Designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the EU, it is seen by its supporters as a legitimate fighting force defending Palestinians from a brutal military occupation.

Read More »Britain should approach hamas

By Alison Weir

(source: Counterpunch)

The New York Times, whose regional bureau chief has a son in the Israeli military, reports that Israel has just appointed a panel charged with investigating its attack on an aid flotilla that killed nine aid volunteers, including a 19-year-old American.

Isabel Kershner, who is an Israeli citizen and has refused to answer questions about her possible family ties to the Israeli military, writes the report.

Kershner reports that the White House hailed the announcement of the panel as an “important step forward,” stating that “the structure and terms of reference of Israel’s proposed independent public commission can meet the standard of a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation.”

Read More »The nyt the flotilla inquiry

British Anthropologist Jeremy Keenan on “The Dark Sahara: America’s56in Africa”
Dark-sahara-web

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues her seven-nation tour of Africa, we hear from British anthropologist Jeremy Keenan. He traces AFRICOM, the US military command in Africa, to a 2003 kidnapping of European tourists. The hostage taking was widely blamed on Islamic militants thought to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, but Keenan argues that the Bush administration and the Algerian government were the ones responsible.

Guest:

Jeremy Keenan, Professor of social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. His latest book is The Dark Sahara: America’s56in Africa. Its sequel, The Dying Sahara, will be released next year.

AMY GOODMAN: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has emphasized that her seven-country tour of Africa is intended to promote democracy, fight corruption, and boost US investments in African trade and agriculture.

We turn now to another issue that’s widely expected to be discussed on every stop: AFRICOM, the US military command in Africa, which has been publicly opposed by every country on the continent except Liberia.

Now Secretary Clinton will not be visiting the countries in and around the oil- and gas-rich Sahara desert—Mali, Niger, Chad, Algeria and Mauritania. But a new book by British anthropologist Jeremy Keenan argues this area is crucial to understanding the birth of AFRICOM and the Bush administration’s expansion of the global56into Africa.

Keenan is a professor of social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and has spent over four decades working in and writing about this region. He traces AFRICOM and the US military concern over al-Qaeda’s presence in Africa back to the February 2003 kidnapping of thirty-two European tourists in Algeria’s Sahara desert. The hostage taking was widely blamed on Islamic militants thought to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, but Professor Keenan argues that the Bush administration and the Algerian government were the ones to blame.

His latest book is called The Dark Sahara: America’s56in Africa. Its sequel is called The Dying Sahara, will be released next year.

Anjali Kamat and I spoke with Professor Keenan last week and asked him to lay out the story.     

Read More »British anthropologist jeremy keenan on the dark sahara americas56in Africa

(source: Press Release (29-06-2010), gush-shalom.org)

Today, Wednesday June 30, the Supreme Court will hear our appeal to dismantle the Tirkel Committee and replace it with a Judicial Commission of Inquiry.

Uri Avnery: "Even if the United States government was convinced to agree to a powerless, meaningless investigation, we as Israeli citizen concerned for the future of our country absolutely don’t agree."

Today, Wednesday June 30, at 9am Judges Naor, Meltzer and Dantziger of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem will hear the appeal of the Gush Shalom movement to dismantle the "Tirkel Committee" and replace it with a Judicial Commission of Inquiry, independent of the government and fully empowered to investigate the circumstances of the Israeli Navy takeover of the Gaza Flotilla. The appeal is signed on behalf of Gush Shalom by former Knesset Member Uri Avnery, and the movement’s spokesperson Adam Keller. It i represented by lawyers Gaby Laski, Lymor Goldstein and Neri Ramati.

The main argument in the state’s answer, presented to the Supreme Court, is that the government has an unlimited power to decide whether or not to investigate a certain event at all, in whose hands to place the investigation and what powers to give the investigators, and that in the past the Supreme Court rejected appeals seeking to impose on the government the creation of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry.

Read More »Gush shalom appeals to the supreme court